Discussion Topic

Since the title of the earlier thread regarding this ascent was wrong I figured it would be best to start a new one.

Here are the facts: Hayden Kennedy and Jason Kruk made a very fast ascent (13 hours from the Col of Patience to the top) of the SE ridge of Cerro Torre on what for sometime we have been calling "fair means" style, which implies not using Maestri's insane bolt ladders. We presume they used some of Maestri's belays but in pitches only clipped 5 bolts, four placed by Ermanno Salvaterra on his 1999 variation and one placed by Chris Geisler on his and Jason's variations last season. They followed an identical line to the one climbed by Chris and Jason last year, making a pendulum left in Chris's last pitch, to connect a number of discontinuous features over three short pitches to reach the top (5.11+ and A2) . During the descent they chopped a good portion of the Compressor route, including the entire headwall and one of the pitches below. The Compressor route is no more.

A quote from that article:
When asked about the Compressor Route, the legendary Slovene climber Silvo Karo, responsible for two new routes and one major link up on Cerro Torre, responded, “That climb was stolen from the future. Without all those bolts the history of that marvelous mountain would have been very different. I am convinced that in alpinism how you have climbed is more important than what you have climbed, and I have no doubt that the best are those that leave the least amount of stuff behind.” Surprisingly, Maestri agreed with the last part of Karo’s statement. In his 2000 Metri della Nostra Vita, Maestri recounts that, before making the first rappel from the high point of his attempt (he stopped 100 feet below the summit) he decided to, “take out all the bolts and leave the climb as clean as we found it. I’ll break them all.” After chopping 20 bolts, and in the face of the magnitude of the enterprise, Maestri changed his mind. Mario Conti, responsible in 1974 for what is now known to be the first ascent of the Cerro Torre, agrees, writing in the 2006 book Enigma Cerro Torre, “Only by taking out the bolts one can imagine the mountain as it was, as it should still be.”

Now the mountain is much closer to being, in Conti's words, "as it was, and it should be".

I am impressed beyond words by Jason and Hayden's incredible ascent, and will be forever in-debt and grateful to them for taking this game-changing leap. The future of alpinism is bright when we have such young and brilliant "heroes".

Yesterday evening, walking out of the Cerro Torre valley for the hundredth and some time, I turned around many times to look up at a mountain, an incredibly beautiful peak, one that I could finally see as it truly is.

Rolo's title is perhaps derived from Ken Wilson's famous article in Mountain 23 - "Cerro Torre: A Mountain Desecreated".

It must have been a lot of work, removing all those bolts, even if they were 40 years old.

Congratulations to Jason and Hayden for an impressive climb! The removal of the bolts is sure to cause controversy, but so it goes. It sounds like the route taken was similar to that used by Haston, Crew et al in 1968 (the first attempt on the ridge), to their high point, and perhaps not far from what they would've taken to the top, had they not dropped their bolt kit.

Great job on the ascent and the climb, that's for sure. Well done, lads.

Now, what about chopping the bolts? I have never approved of Maestri's attempt. I hate bolts, incidentally. I have never placed a bolt on lead or rappel in my life, nor any chicken rivets or the like. I once added a rivet on a route when I ripped the only flake you could hook, and there was no other way to repeat the route without a cheat stick.

I have, however, removed a lot of bolts, and replaced a lot of bolts, mostly at belays, along with a few rivets mid-pitch. When we're repairing routes on El Cap, we take a tuning fork to a bolt, carefully pry it out of the rock along with its hanger, and then either drill the hole out from quarter-inch to three-eights and refill it with a 3/8" bolt, or else fill the hole with epoxy, rendering it pretty much invisible. You have this luxury when you are climbing in a pair of shorts, you see.

It's different in the mountains, of course, it's a hostile environment and you don't have as much time. Were Maestri's bolts just chopped off with a chisel? Do we have any before and after photos? And I'm knott criticizing, I'm merely asking. I have seen some damned ugly chopped bolts. As per buddy's question below, if you "chop" a bolt with a chisel, the bolt remains in the hole, and you are left with an unsightly hunk of metal. Now on a sunny crag, it might be unsightly. On a frozen wasteland like Cerro Torre, it might well be invisible. So just askin'....

So what will the "Regular Route" up Cerro Torre now be? How much harder is it than the Compressor Route? How many ascents has the Compressor Route received, and on average, how many per season?

Thanks Rolo for that concise update. Well done to Hayden and Jason. It's a long time coming. It's interesting to conjecture what the story of the Torre would have been if Maestri had never put those bolts in. I'm sure someone would have found a cleaner way up the SE ridge many years ago if they hadn't been there..they defiantely turned it into the "line of least resistance".

in response to Pete's questions, the bolts are "preassure pins" of sorts, a sort of glorified rivet. When you hit them from the top with a hammer the whole bolt comes out like butter. Three to seven blows is enough.

No they did not fill the holes. Eventually it would be a good thing to do.

as far as to what the "normal route" up CT is now, that would be the outstanding Ragni route in the west face.

Let's not get sidetracked here. The fact that that such an amazing line – one of the best in the world - was recently climbed without use of bolts set by a freaking gas powered compressor far and away trumps whether the chopped bolt holes were filled. Come on, guys. Which is the bigger insult to what we believe in as climbers - hundreds of power-driven bolts or not filling their now chopped holes?

Thanks to Kennedy and Kruk for chopping parts of the route!
At present the holes are of insignificant concern compared with the bloody compressor. But maybe successive teams will continue the cleaning up. Time will show.